“Curse the news!” said Ivan petulantly. “Drive quickly, isvostchik,[14] and I’ll double thy fare.” Yet absorbed as he was in his sordid, selfish trouble, he could not fail to see that some extraordinary change had passed over the city. At the street corners and in the thoroughfares persons of all classes were gathering in groups, talking and gesticulating. A few had letters or printed papers in their hands; but those who could read were a small minority, and by far the greater number were discussing what they had heard from the lips of others. Now and then Ivan wondered languidly what had happened; but his thoughts always slipped back to subjects of more pressing interest. What should he say to Petrovitch? and what would Petrovitch say to him? It was a glorious morning at the end of June, “The very city’s self was filled With the breath and the beam of heaven.” Fair shone the gilded cupolas of the Kremlin, brightly gleamed the silver Moskva, and the gardens and terraces were blooming with a thousand flowers. Never had the old city looked more lovely, with the strange peculiar charm of its quaint barbaric magnificence toned and softened by those sweet influences of sun and air that touch the responsive earth like the benediction of Heaven. On that day Ivan scarcely noticed its beauty; but in after years the memory often returned to him,--like the last happy, untroubled look we have seen on some beloved face, ere it is dimmed by those shadows of disease and pain that prelude the darker shadow of the grave. At length he reached the house of Petrovitch, dismissed his drosky, and walked in. He was accustomed to enter the old man’s presence unannounced, to be recognized by the sound of his footsteps, and affectionately welcomed.